One of the most spectacular bubbles inflated as a direct result of the oligarch giveaway colloquially known as “central bank policy” in the years since the global economic meltdown, has been the London real estate market. There are many reasons for this, but the primary one is the fact that London was seen as one of the … Read more
Two months ago I published a piece titled, Luxury London Home Sales Plunge 26% – Has this Mega Real Estate Bubble Finally Burst?. I wrote: It appears the music may have finally stopped for one of the world’s largest luxury real estate bubbles: London. It’s well known that foreign oligarchs love London real estate as a means … Read more
It appears the music may have finally stopped for one of the world’s largest luxury real estate bubbles: London. It’s well known that foreign oligarchs love London real estate as a means to launder funds, typically “earned” by soaking their host countries dry via corruption and fraud. This has caused absurd and irrational spikes in high-end … Read more
Many of you will be intimately familiar with the massive real estate bubble still in the process of inflating in certain parts of Canada, particularly Vancouver. The insanity of it all recently received a great deal of public attention when the following home was listed for $2.4 million earlier this year (it has since sold). If … Read more
The City is a semi-offshore state, a bit like the UK’s crown dependencies and overseas territories, tax havens legitimised by the Privy Council. Britain’s financial secrecy undermines the tax base while providing a conduit into the legal economy for gangsters, kleptocrats and drug barons. Even the more orthodox financial institutions deploy a succession of scandalous practices: pension mis-selling, … Read more
It appears the music may have finally stopped for one of the world’s largest luxury real estate bubbles: London. It’s well known that foreign oligarchs love London real estate as a means to launder funds, typically “earned” by soaking their host countries dry via corruption and fraud. This has caused absurd and irrational spikes in high-end residential … Read more
A stunning reversal across various global real estate hubs which have served as focal points for both international investors and criminal oligarchs, has made itself clear over the past several months. I’ve highlighted plunging sales and prices in high-end London, a multi-month slowdown in Manhattan’s luxury market, as well as a burst bubble in mansion prices in … Read more
William Ackman is a wildly successful hedge fund manager. He oversees $17 billion of mostly other people’s money. Forbes estimates his personal net worth at $1.7 billion. These facts alone would make him a prime candidate to buy the penthouse condominium at One57, the new luxury tower on West 57th Street. And indeed, Mr. Ackman told … Read more
The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) today issued Geographic Targeting Orders (GTO) that will temporarily require certain U.S. title insurance companies to identify the natural persons behind companies used to pay “all cash” for high-end residential real estate in the Borough of Manhattan in New York City, New York, and Miami-Dade County, Florida. FinCEN is … Read more
One of the key themes here at Liberty Blitzkrieg over the past couple of years, has been to highlight the fact that individuals or institutions with access to capital or cheap financing have been buying up properties across the U.S. in order to rent them to the same people foreclosed on during the financial crisis. This … Read more